Garden Hill Reserve
August 13-19


When I was first asked to volunteer to go to Garden Hill, I was a little apprehensive. It was another week away from home, and it was another flight back to Winnipeg. However, I was excited, as it was a new experience for many people in the group, and especially for me, since I’ve never been to an actual reserve before.
Many details were not confirmed, there were many questions as to how we would get there, where we would stay, how much help and supplies we would have. I didn’t want to make a decision until all the details were finalized, but one morning during the devotion that Gendi led, I realized that there was so much I could give to a community that had so little, and so I agreed to go.
We arrived at Garden Hill via a chartered plane—a little 15-passenger plane with propellers. I have never been on this kind of plane before, and some people on our team haven’t even flown before! We were thankful that our flight went off without any problems. Flying into the reserve and looking at the scenery, it was amazing to see how a community of people could live in a remote island with no ways of traveling to the city except through flights or winter roads. Everything was surrounded by water, and the only way to get from one island to the next was through “water taxis”, which were really just speedboats.
When we arrived at the airport (which was on a separate island from the mainland), all we did was wait, as we didn’t know who was there to pick us up, or if there were any water taxi’s working (it was Sunday, and nothing was open)! Thankfully, after only a half an hour of waiting, we all piled onto the boats and we were off to the mainland. At first glance, the islands were like a picture out of cottage country. Water, trees everywhere—the perfect description of God’s creation—but as we set foot onto the reserve, it was just full of garbage and car dumps. We waited some more for Pastor Joe (not our Pastor Joe!) to arrive so that he could take us to where we were staying. We still didn’t know whether we were sleeping on the gym floor with mats, or anywhere for that matter. Luckily, God again provided for us and we were given teacherages to stay at.
The first thing we did after getting off the boats was to walk to the TV and radio station for Pastor Joe and his wife Juliet to introduce us to the community. It was interesting to see the little station (it was just a portable) and the immediate response. They were getting calls non-stop! Afterwards, we walked to the school where we would be holding the camp and again, everywhere was just garbage. We got settled and we went off exploring.
As it was still early in the day (around noon), some of us went down to the field, where a tent meeting was being held. Apparently the meeting was supposed to start at 1, but it really didn’t start until 5pm! Meanwhile, some children started drifting in and we played an impromptu game of soccer with them. While the tent meeting got started, it was amazing to hear praises coming from the tent. It was non-stop as one person would go up and sing, then another would talk for a bit and also lead a song.
The first day of the day camp was interesting, as we didn’t have any idea what was going on. The kids were supposed to arrive at 9, but by then, we were still waiting for the janitor to open the gym door for us to go in! Eventually, we were let in and the kids started arriving. There was no formal registration for the kids, so we put numbers on their arms and wrote down who they were. We had almost 65 kids the first day! We were expecting to have 12 additional local helpers, but we found out that there was some kind of feud going on between the churches. Because Pastor Joe was the one that we got in touch with, the other native churches thought that the group was “his people”, and didn’t want to help us at all. So we had to limit the 100 kids to around 75.
The day camp was from 9am to around 4pm everyday. We included lunch for them, and it was a miracle itself that we fed all those kids! We were surprised that we only had a regular stove that we could use, as well as one huge pot and one large frying pan. Not a lot of equipment yet we managed to feed up to 90 people a day. Chapel was held everyday, with boys separated from girls. I’m not sure about the boy’s chapel, but the girls were just amazing. Listening to the messages and learning about how beautiful and loved they were. Devotions were after lunch, and that was the most hectic period of the day. With not enough helpers, each counselor had around 12 kids! The worst was that they were all at different levels of education, and some couldn’t even read or write. This took a long time as they really didn’t want to listen either, and the boys were always running around being distracted.
However, there were many times were you could just sit and chat with the kids. Most of the girls didn’t really participate in the outdoor activities, so we just sat around in circles and just talked. Once you get to know them, they were a surprising bunch. Just hearing about where they lived, what they do all day, it was really an experience to see how much they loved their home. There was a sense of pride in the reserve—the kids even knew their native language! This was a surprise to us, as most of the kids at Eagle Bay Camp don’t really know a whole lot about their culture and language.
Throughout the week, it was disheartening to see that the kids don’t want to listen or participate in devotions, but there were the few that encouraged us to continue. For myself, the last devotion that I led on Friday was the most memorable. Throughout the week, I’ve had trouble keeping my girls focus on the devotions instead of other things. Friday was a different story. As soon as I started the devotion, questions just came pouring out of one girl. Questions that I hard a hard time answering, but I did the best I could. Finally, at the end when I was praying the acceptance prayer, the girl told me afterwards that she felt this rushing in her heart! I asked her if she said the prayer with me, and if she believed in what Jesus did for her, and she said yes! I was just jumping up and down inside—it was this moment that made my week there bearable.
I don’t know how many kids came to Christ that week, but as we were leaving, all the kids were asking us if we’d be back next year or not, and even the Council was telling us that what we’re doing was good and if we came back next year there would be more support and help sent our way!


Here is the plane that we went on...and pastor scott from Eastridge


This is the group that went to Garden Hill

other pics:







Still some more...





these are some houses that we passed by when touring the island...which is a total of 18km long. notice all the dead cars and boarded up places...there was even a relatively new building that was abandoned because a girl hung herself there and people thought it was haunted.





these are the pics with the council, and Pastor JOE and his wife Juliet

pics of the island and surrounding area:





sighs. i miss it already.